Raleigh's innocence almost to demonstration, and shown that

the authors of the pretended plot were Howard and Cecil. Raleigh was brought to trial at Winchester in November, 1603, and was assailed with the most brutal insults and foul abuse by Coke, the attorney-general. Sir Walter conducted his defence with remarkable temper, eloquence, and dignity; but the obsequious jury found him guilty in spite of the total absence of legal proof. James, however, did not venture to put the sentence against him into execution. He was reprieved and remanded to the Tower, and his estate of Sherborne, which was settled some years before on his eldest son, was forfeited and bestowed upon the king's worthless favourite, Car, afterwards earl of Somerset. Lady Raleigh on her knees entreated James not to perpetrate this act of injustice and spoliation. But the inflexible and heartless monarch coldly replied—"I maun have the land; I maun have it for Car." Raleigh's chief solace during the rigours of his long confinement in the Tower, was derived from his literary and scientific pursuits. He converted a small house in the garden into a laboratory, and carried on there many chemical and medical experiments, for which he appears to have had a strong partiality. Prince Henry, the heir-apparent to the throne, took a deep interest in Sir Walter's welfare, cheered him by his correspondence, courted his advice, and endeavoured by every means in his power to soften the cruelty of his sentence. "Sure no king but my father," said he, "would keep such a bird in a cage." At the request of this accomplished prince, and for his instruction. Sir Walter composed his "History of the World," an essay on ship-building, his discourses on the prince's marriage, and a treatise on war. By the untimely death of this promising youth, Raleigh received one of the severest blows which could have befallen him, and this affliction, aggravated by the failure of all his efforts to recover his liberty, seriously affected his health. At length the death of his inveterate enemy Cecil, the condemnation and disgrace of Somerset, and the rise of a new favourite in George Villiers, removed the main obstacles to his enlargement, and encouraged him to redouble his exertions to procure his liberty, which he at last obtained in 1615, after an imprisonment of more than twelve years, by the payment of £1500 to the uncles of Villiers. On regaining his freedom he renewed his favourite scheme of colonizing Guiana, and having obtained the royal sanction, and a commission under the privy seal, he set sail with a squadron of fifteen ships. On reaching Guiana in November severe sickness prevented Sir Walter from proceeding farther, but he deputed Captain Keymis to sail up the Orinoco in search of certain mines. The attempt proved utterly abortive. Keymis, indeed, repulsed an attack of the Spaniards, and took the town of St. Thomas; but he found little or no booty. Raleigh's eldest son, a youth of great promise, fell in the assault, and Keymis, having failed to find any traces of a mine, committed suicide. Worn out by disease, and almost heart-broken by the death of his son and the failure of the expedition, Raleigh directed his course toward England. The news of his misfortune reached this country before him, and James, urged by the Spanish ambassador to punish Raleigh for his attack on St. Thomas, and fearing for the match then pending between the prince of Wales and the infanta, meanly and pusillanimously determined to propitiate the Spanish court by the sacrifice of the man whom they feared and hated as their most formidable enemy. Raleigh was accordingly arrested on his return, committed to the Tower, and shortly after beheaded (29th October, 1618) on his former sentence. His behaviour in the last scene of his life was manly, unaffected, and cheerful. He was executed in the sixty-sixth year of his age. Sir Walter Raleigh was one of the most eminent men in an age fertile beyond example in great minds. He was not only counted a great statesman and warrior both by sea and land, but also a scholar, a poet, a historian, and a philosopher. His noblest literary production, the "History of the World," though composed in imprisonment and solitude, under the pressure of sickness and disappointment, is an extraordinary monument of genius and labour, which for vastness of research and learning, depth of reflection, richness of imagination, and strength and dignity of language, has not often been equalled. His poetical remains are few, but in them, as in his prose works, there is a happy blending of original description, forcible thought, and striking metaphor. A complete edition of his works was published at Oxford in 1829, in 8 vols., 8vo.—J. T. RALEIGH, Walter, an English divine, the second son of Sir Carew Raleigh (elder brother of the great Sir Walter), was born at Downton, Wiltshire, in 1586. Educated at Oxford, he became chaplain to the earl of Pembroke, and was appointed rector of Chedzoy, near Bridgewater, in 1620, and dean of Wells in 1641. During the civil war he was "very barbarously treated by the parliamentarians, and whilst imprisoned at Wells he was stabbed by his keeper, dying of the wound, October 10, 1646. In 1679 Dr. Patrick published "Reliquiæ Raleghanæ, being Discourses and Sermons on several Subjects."—W. J. P. RALPH, James, was an English "author by profession" in the reign of George II. In a pamphlet on the subject, he declares that writing for bread is the last profession a liberal mind would choose. He was born in Philadelphia, and passed the earlier part of his life as a schoolmaster. In 1725 he sought to better his fortune by coming to England, in company, it is said, with Benjamin Franklin. Though possessing real literary talent, as proved by his "History of England," and his reply to the duchess of Marlborough, his first attempts to win public favour, being in verse, were unsuccessful. His plays, which appeared between 1730 and 1734, brought him but little money; his poem, "Night," gave Pope an opportunity to avenge Ralph's audacity in criticizing himself and his friends. The following lines appeared in the Dunciad, with a savage and vituperative note appended:—

He was more fortunate in his prose writings, wrote criticisms in the Champion, and edited the Remembrancer. His pamphleteering ability probably recommended him to Bubb Doddington, through whom and the Leicester House party he had begun to hope for advancement, when Frederick prince of Wales died. A curious story is told in Nichols' Anecdotes (ix., 591) of certain papers committed to Ralph's care by the prince for the purpose of publication, under the title of Memoirs of Prince Titus. A pension of £150 a year to Ralph's daughter, is said to have been the price paid by the ministry for the recovery of these papers. Ralph's "History of England" in continuation of Guthrie's, appeared in 1744-46 in 2 vols., folio. Although written in the spirit of a partisan, it is an able work. He published "The Other Side of the Question," &c., in reply to the duchess of Marlborough, in 1742. He died at Chiswick of the gout, on the 24th January, 1762. A notice of his life and works will be found in Drake's Essays. See also Walpole's Memoirs, and Davies' Life of Garrick.—R. H. RAMAZZINI, Bernardo, a physician, was born at Carpi in 1633. He was educated at the Jesuits' school in that town, and afterwards studied medicine at Parma, where he graduated in 1659. He then continued his studies at Rome, under Antonmaria de Rossi. He practised successively at Castro, Carpi, and Modena; at the latter place he was nominated by the duke, in 1678, to the professorship of the theory of medicine. In 1700 we find him appointed to the second chair of medicine at Padua, and he became president of the college of physicians at Venice, in 1708. In the following year he was elected to the first professorship of Padua. He lost his sight in 1705, and died in 1714. He was the author of several works, amongst which are an "Account of the Springs of Modena," "Constitutiones Epidemicæ," and "De Morbis Artificum Diatriba."—F. C. W. RAMEAU, Jean Phillipe, a musician, was born at Dijon in 1683. After he had learnt the rudiments of music, his taste for the art led him, while young, to leave his native country, and wander about with the performers of a German opera. At the age of eighteen he composed a musical entertainment, which was represented at Avignon with great success. He next became a candidate for the place of organist of the church of St. Paul in Paris; but failing to obtain it, he had almost determined to renounce that branch of his profession, but was prevented by the offer of the place of organist of the cathedral church of Clermont, in Auvergne, which he accepted. In this retirement he studied with the utmost assiduity the theory of his art. His investigation in the course of this pursuit gave birth to his "Traité de l'Harmonie," printed at Paris in 1722, and to his "Nouveau Systéme de Musique Théorique," printed at the same place in 1726. But the work for which Rameau is most celebrated, is his "Demonstration du Principe de l'Harmonie," Paris, 1750; in which, as his countrymen say, he has shown that the whole depends upon one single and clear principle, namely, the fundamental bass; and in this respect he is by them compared to Newton, who by the single principle of gravitation was able to